Granola Carmelita Recipe

I am an avid cereal eater – I will just as happily have a bowl of cereal for any meal as I would go to a fancy restaurant. I love real fruit, nuts, and grains as well as yummy ingredients like big chunks of granola with honey and other yummy stuff. It is the perfect mix of crunch with your milk. Aside from eating yummy cereals for breakfast, I love using them in my recipes. Because they are packed with the things I would normally put in anyway, and taste amazing, I prefer just to grab one of the boxes that works with my recipe and use it saving time and money. We made this Granola Carmelita Recipe with cereal.

This Granola Carmelita Recipe is delicious!

I love caramel and Oatmeal – and I wanted to make Oatmeal Carmelitas because well, they taste amazing and are perfect for a get together and parties. They are really easy to make and you can use what you have on hand around the house. I used the Quaker® Simply Granola as part of the recipe and it added that much more flavor and goodness – so ours is a Granola Carmelita.

To start you will want to gather your ingredients – this comes together really quick so you want to make sure you have everything ready. You will need flour, Quaker® Simply Granola, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, and butter or shortening for the crust. For the filling you can use whatever you want, but we are using caramel, flour, chocolate chips and nuts. (you can add fruit, peanut butter, etc instead of caramel).

To make the crust you are going to mix 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 cups of Quaker® Simply Granola, 1 1/2 cups of packed brown sugar, 1 tsp of baking soda, 1/2 tsp of salt, and 1 1/4 cups of shortening. Use your mixer and blend until it crumbles. Take half of the mixture and press it into the bottom of a greased 9×12 pan and bake for about 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees.

While that is baking you will make your filling by mixing caramel (you can use wrapped caramels or from the jar) with a couple of tbsp of heavy whipping cream and heat for about 20 seconds at a time until smooth and creamy. Add 3 tbsp of flour and mix in well.

Take the crust out of the oven and add the chocolate chips to the hot crust and smear them around as they melt (if they don’t melt completely don’t worry as you will be putting the mixture back into the oven). Sprinkle the nuts over the chocolate and then drizzle the caramel mixture evenly and spread to make sure everything is covered. Sprinkle the rest of the crumb mixture over the top, spreading evenly, and then put back into the oven and bake for 18-20 minutes until lightly brown.

Remove from oven and let cool completely. If you are like me you will be eating it way before that lol – but (after it is cooled) you should put it into the refrigerator to let the filling “set” before serving. These are amazing and very versatile as you can add any filling between the yummy crust mixture. Here is the Granola Carmelita recipe so you can stop drooling on your keyboard 😉

Granola Carmelita Recipe

Ingredients
Crust

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups of Quaker® Simply Granola Cereal
• 1 1/2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups shortening

Filling

• 1 cup of caramel
• 2 tbsp of whipping cream
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 package of chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Instructions

• Turn oven to 350*. and grease 13×9 inch pan
• Mix crust ingredients at low speed until they crumble
• Press half of the crumb mixture in the bottom of the greased pan and bake at 350* for 8-10 minutes
• Mix your caramel mixture by heating the caramel with 2 tbsp of whipping cream for about 20 sec at a time until smooth and creamy then blend in 3 tbsp of flour.
• Take the crust out of the oven and sprinkle it with the chocolate chips, nuts, and drizzle the caramel mixture evenly.
• Sprinkle with the rest of the crumb mixture to create the topping
• Bake for 18-20 minutes until lightly browned
• Remove from oven, cool completely then chill until filling has set (about an hour)
• Cut into bars, serve, and enjoy!

What is your favorite recipe for cereal?

Here are more recipes:

Creamy Red Potato, Bacon and Cheese Soup

Caramel Apple Braid {made with cinnamon rolls}